Study on the height distribution of atmospheric nonlinear refractive index with a theoretical calculation model

Abstract

The crucial role of nonlinear propagation effects in the self-guiding of femtosecond laser pulses required accurate representation of nonlinearities to describe them. In this paper, an improved theoretical model has been proposed to study the height distribution of the atmospheric nonlinear refractive index. The results show that the revised model obviously improves accurate estimation of nonlinear index at the long wavelength band. Based on the model, we also found the atmospheric nonlinear refractive index differs much from the lower atmosphere to the upper atmosphere. Our results are essential for engineering applications based on the long-distance ultrashort laser pulses’ transmission in diverse atmosphere.